Former Rovers and Burnley midfielder Lenny Johnrose feels a duty to spread the word to footballers about the ‘frightening’ statistics suggesting a link between professional contact sport and motor neurone disease.

But the 49-year-old, who also played for Bury and Swansea, says nothing would have deterred him from pursuing a career in the game.

The diagnosis hit Johnrose hard, plunging him into depression and initially prompting him to look into assisted dying.

“I had thoughts about not wanting to be a burden, and of not wanting to have this long or short, painful death,” Johnrose said. “So there were some really dark days where you absolutely think the worst.”

MND is a life-shortening condition for which there is no cure. There is a one in 300 risk of developing MND in a lifetime, but recent studies have pointed to an increase in that risk for those involved at the top level of sports such as football and rugby.

 Sixteen separate studies found those who sustained repeated blows to the head and spine in top-level sport were more than eight times more likely than an ‘average’ person to develop the disease.

Johnrose, who became a primary school teacher after retiring from football, now wants to educate current professionals about the condition, and the ongoing research.

“It’s quite frightening to learn (what the new study shows) and I’m going into clubs and I have to be quite sensitive to that, because I don’t want people to think ‘oh my goodness, I’m going to get motor neurone disease because I play football’. Because I wouldn’t have done anything differently,” he said.

“But I just think it’s an important message for them to know.

“A lot of studies and research still need to be done, I get that. But the fact that there are suggested commonalities between football and motor neurone disease, it seems completely wrong of me to not to try to spread that word.

“If it turns out that there is a link, in terms of implications that would be absolutely huge within the game of football. So I think it’s a message worth certainly passing on.”

Johnrose is prioritising time with his wife Nadine and his children Chanel, Elizabeth and Patrick, but has also launched Project 92. He intends to visit every professional club, having already given talks at both Blackburn Rovers and Accrington Stanley, to raise funds and awareness of the disease.

Johnrose says the turning point came when he began to talk openly about the condition.

“It just took me a while to get there mentally, but after going public in August, it was as though the shackles had gone,” he said.

“The Motor Neurone Disease Association got in touch with me and were grateful that I had come out, because they said they’d needed somebody really to raise the profile within the public of motor neurone disease.

“I’m going to continue to raise awareness, and I’ll just continue to enjoy my life whether I’m here for the next two minutes or the next 20 years.”